C in a circle means “copyright claimed”.

T in a circle means “trademark”.

R in a circle means “registered”.

How about two new ones?

F in a circle [I propose] means “feel completely free to use this idea” as applies [I understand] in the Halfbakery.

S in a circle [I propose] means “Share some of any money you make from this idea with a charity of your choice.”

Dream stuff? Probably.
-- rayfo, Oct 10 2000

And of course backwards G-in-a-circle for GPL'ed stuff.

BTW, ideas on the halfbakery are not in the public domain in the sense that you could copy their text and claim you wrote it - while the halfbakery doesn't add special protections, it doesn't take any of your rights away, either. (And that includes the copyright for any text you write.)
-- jutta, Oct 10 2000


HTML formatting: no, except <br> happens to work at the end of a line. You can probably use almost all of iso8859-1, though.
-- jutta, Oct 10 2000


The public domain aspect of Halfbakery is that if you have a patentable idea, you have one year from the date it is first published (such as on Halfbakery, for instance) to apply for a U.S. patent. For patent coverage elsewhere in the world, if you have not filed an application before publication, you lose the right to apply when the idea is published.
-- beauxeault, Oct 11 2000


Published *ideas* are not protected in any case, unless you patent them, so I'm not sure why you'd want to use a symbol to mark what other people can do with "your" idea; they can do whatever they want.

(Ideas are not generally very valuable, anyway.)

I could see using some new psuedo-symbols for copyright licenses, but my objections are similar to those voiced against the idea of inventing a character to represent the word "http". Copyright is actually a much more general concept than any particular license (such as a freeware license, or the GPL, or a shareware license).

That all said, a left-facing (backwards) C in a circle has been used to denote "copyleft", or GPL, by some people.

Finally, your list omits M in a circle, which denotes the obscure "mask rights" form of intellectual property protection, which applies only to integrated circuit designs.
-- egnor, Oct 11 2000


Thanx all. An enlightening exchange.
-- rayfo, Oct 17 2000


D in a circle: excluded from the public domain from now until the heat-death of the Universe. Also known as the Disneyright.
-- yppiz, Nov 19 2002


Another symbol: (P) [with a circle] indicates master. Used for audio recordings, especially those produced under compulsory recording license. If I wanted to produce a cover of e.g. the song Memory (by Andrew Lloyd Webber, from the musical CATS, copyright owned by The Really Useful Group, Ltd.), I would send a letter via certified mail to The Really Useful Group Ltd. stating that I wanted a compulsory license. Unless other arrangements were reached, I would pay them eight cents per copy, and the copies would most properly be marked:

(C) 1982 The Really Useful Group Ltd. (P) 2002 [me]
-- supercat, Nov 20 2002


Yeah you could have a P in a circle so that you know that its been pirated...
-- Supercruiser, Nov 20 2002


//Yeah you could have a P in a circle so that you know that its been pirated...//

Who said anything about pirating? I was discussing the proper form for copyright notices for legally-produced audio recordings.
-- supercat, Nov 20 2002



random, halfbakery